scilla it
appeared to be hours, though it could only have been some minutes,
before the shape reached the house-door, and sunk down out of sight on
the threshold, under the shadow of the little pent-roof over the
doorway. She could no longer see it without opening her window and
stretching out her head. It was there, just out of sight; and it seemed
more terrifying to her than while she could watch its languid and
ghostlike progress.

She sat motionless, with no power to move. Poor Rhoda! poor little
child, whom she had loved so fondly! Not escaped from her misery, even
though she was dead; but wandering, a lost and restless spirit, about
her old home! A rush of troubled tenderness flooded Aunt Priscilla's
heart.

"God help me!" she breathed half aloud. "I never wished her harm like
this; I'll speak to her; I'll call to her. Perhaps she's something to
say, and can't rest till she's said it. Oh! my poor, poor girl!"

Trembling all over, she unlatched her casement and swung it back on its
rusty hinges, which creaked loudly in the utter stillness. The dark heap
on the threshold stirred a little; and Aunt Priscilla called to it in a
very low, quivering, and sorrowful voice--

"Rhoda!"

"Yes, aunty," came the answer, in a tone so hollow and faint that she
could hardly be sure whether it had been spoken, or that she had fancied
it.

"Why do you come to trouble us like this?" asked Aunt Priscilla.

"Baby's here, and you, and Joan," moaned the faint voice again, "and
there's nowhere else in all the world for me."

"Is there anything I can do to give you rest?" asked Aunt Priscilla,
shivering.

"If you'd only forgive me before I die!" answered Rhoda, lifting up a
white, thin face, which could be seen dimly in the gloom.

Aunt Priscilla sunk down on her knees before the open window. Rhoda was
not dead, then! It was she herself, not her ghost, that was wandering
about the old places, and haunting the home that had once been hers, and
which now sheltered her baby. Where she had been all the week Aunt
Priscilla did not know. But what was she to do with her now? Must she
let her die outside her door on this winter's night?

As she knelt there in silence she heard the clock strike twelve, and the
bells from the little grey belfry of the church on the shore ring
cheerily out into the night. Two years ago she and her neighbours had
watched the Old Year out in the kitchen below; and she could see, as it
were, Rhoda's prett